If we campaign for "compassionate" treatment today, how can we say that this "compassionate" treatment is unacceptable tomorrow?? Animal welfare reform campaigns, which talk about "compassionate" practices most certainly send a message to the public: products produced "compassionately" are morally okay to consume. If you look on the net, people are embracing being "conscientious omnivores" because animal welfare has supposedly improved.
We have had welfare reform for 200 years now. We are using more animals in more horrific ways than at any time in human history. Welfare reform does not work. It cannot work. Animals are chattel property. Given that status, and the reality of markets, including and especially the fact of international markets and "free trade" agreements, animal welfare will rarely if ever provide more protection to animals than what is economically justifiable.
Veganism is one of the most important single form of social activism a human being can engage in. The most important thing we can do is be vegan. Veganism is not a diet as we all know and it's not a lifestyle. It's a political commitment to non-violence. It is an extremely important commitment to nonviolence. If we believe in nonviolence, the cornerstone of nonviolence is veganism. And we have an animal "movement" telling us "oh it's so very hard to be vegan, you're hanging on the cross for animals, you're a martyr for the animals". We have to stop that. We have to make it clear to people that being vegan is easy. It's extremely easy. And it's crucial. We need to build a vegan movement. We talk about the animal movement, but we don't have an animal "movement" yet. We don't have a political movement. We have charities, we have big organisations which have millions of dollars; and they're charities, bourgeois charities; they are not political; they have nothing to do with political ideas. We need to build a political movement. We don't have one yet, and veganism has to be it's foundation.
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